-Submitted images A rendering indicates what the Greehey Student Success Center will look like. The college’s Board of Directors approved the plans and specifications for the project Tuesday and are expected to award a contract at the March 11 board meeting.

FORT DODGE – A new center that will combine student services now scattered across the Iowa Central Community College campus in Fort Dodge is inching closer to reality.

The college’s Board of Directors on Tuesday approved the plans and specifications for the $12.15 million Greehey Family Student Success Center.

That action started the process of soliciting bids from companies interested in building the center. The board will be asked to award a contract during its March 11 meeting.

Eric Vermeer, principal architect with Haila Architecture Structure Planning, of Ames, told the board that construction will start in April and be substantially completed in May 2020. Final completion is expected in June 2020 and the center is to be fully operational for the 2020-2021 academic year.

The center is named for the family of Bill Greehey, a Fort Dodge Senior High School graduate who was the chairman of Valero Energy Corp. He donated $3 million for the facility. The rest of the money will come from a $25.5 million general obligation bond issue approved in February 2018 by the voters of Buena Vista, Calhoun, Greene, Hamilton, Humboldt, Pocahontas, Sac, Webster and Wright counties.

The center will consolidate veterans services, enrollment services, student advising, financial aid, the registrar, counseling, housing, career services, distance learning, early intervention support and security in one place. Currently, those services are located in different campus buildings.

The center will be located where a parking lot now sits next to a pond in the middle of the campus. Vermeer said a pedestrian bridge may be built across part of the pond to link the Student Resource Center to the new facility.

Vermeer said part of Triton Circle, the main road that loops through the campus, will be closed during construction. A nearby parking lot will also be taken out of use temporarily so that construction equipment and supplies can be placed there, he said.